Gaza War

Just hours after the settlement was inked, the Justice Department announced that it found UCLA violated federal civil rights law by failing to “respond to complaints of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and abuse that Jewish and Israeli students faced on its campus from October 7, 2023, to the present.”

In June 2024, Yitzchok Frankel, then a second-year UCLA law student, filed a lawsuit alleging he was “harassed and blocked from approaching the encampment by antisemitic activists, all with the assistance of UCLA security.” He was later joined by two additional Jewish students and a medical school professor, and the Justice Department’s notice of violation on Tuesday also pointed to findings in the Frankel suit.

Under the settlement, UCLA will contribute over $2.3 million to eight Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel at UCLA, while another $320,000 will go toward UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism. It will also dole out $50,000 to each of the plaintiffs and pay $3.6 million of their legal fees.

In addition to the payments, UCLA will also enter a consent judgment that prohibits it from “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff”—including discrimination based on one’s “religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel”—from university programs or spaces. The agreement will be in effect for 15 years.